


rage, rage against the dying of the light

by orayofsunshine



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Character Study, Death, F/M, Final moments, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 08:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9226058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orayofsunshine/pseuds/orayofsunshine
Summary: In her last moments, she considers what was and what could have been.





	

She felt the heat before it came. It radiated on her face, making the already hot beach absolutely scorching. Sweat trickled down her face and seeped into her filthy clothes, making them cling uncomfortably against her skin. The sand was rough against her knees as she knelt down, arms wrapped tightly around Cassian. 

Cassian. 

When she had first met the man, she had been everything but warm to him. If anything, she had been pissed because his stupid droid beat her down the second she ran off of the truck that she had just been liberated from. What she wouldn’t give for another witty, sass filled exchange with K2-SO She thought bitterly, chuckling into the coarse fabric of Cassian’s shirt. 

Somewhere along the way though, the resentment had shifted to respect, and then from respect to admiration. He was smart and charming, a good leader. She could have very easily fallen in love with him, had there been time. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. They had run out of chances to get ahead. The Death Star has shot its lethal ray, and with it their fate had been sealed. She wasn’t scared though. Death was not as horrible as a prospect as it once had been. Everyone she cared about was dead, or was soon to be. Her parents, both gone. Saw, taken out on Jedah. All of the men who had fought alongside her on what they all knew was a suicide mission, taken down in the line of duty. They were all gone, and who was she to live when everyone else had died? She had no desire to live without them. No, she had accepted death as a friend, a means of delivering her to become one with the Force. In a way, she believed that death was the only way she would be with the people she loved once again. 

It was getting hotter by the second, the destruction coming towards them faster and faster. There wasn’t much time. She looked up in the sky, seeing the ships still exchanging fire. She hoped that the plans had been transferred safely to the Alliance, that it had not fallen back into enemy hands. She hoped their efforts- their sacrifices were not in vain. 

Cassian shuddered against her, and she pulled away from him slightly to look in his eyes. His face was bloody and bruised, and she was sure his was not much better. She sighed and simply nodded once. What it meant, she did not know, but he responded in kind and she somehow understood completely. With that she leaned back into him, clutching him as if he were a lifeline. He flinched in pain but said nothing. His discomfort wouldn’t matter soon enough. They had little time left, she couldn’t say exactly though. Thirty seconds? Fifteen? 

She kept her eyes on the horizon as she breathed in Cassian’s smell. She could have had the world with him. She pictured missions on planets she had never even heard of, a rare smile on his face as they fought side by side. She saw simple vows whispered against bare skin in the dead of night, the only wedding they would ever have needed. She saw herself, stomach rounded with child and Cassian looking at it with all of the love in the world. She pictured everything and more in a life she would never have. But, because of the sacrifices they had made, someone else would have that. Many other men and women would get the future she would never have because of what Rogue One had done.

That thought alone was enough to satisfy her and put a slight smile on her face as the light grew unbearably bright and she was forced to close her eyes for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! This was my first Rogue One/Star Wars fic so hopefully I captured everything well! :) Title comes from "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas


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